


Like a Lonely House

by ifonlyiwaswittier



Series: Unrelated Eruri [7]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: And also like emotional/romantic frustration because they're in love, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Frottage, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sexual Frustration, Sexual Tension, Smut, bottom erwin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 00:19:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15158342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifonlyiwaswittier/pseuds/ifonlyiwaswittier
Summary: The summer they lived above Lord’s 24 Hour Laundry and Dry Cleaning was one of the worst of Erwin’s life. Erwin spent the sweltering days on the roof, drawing lives he imagines for people on the street below, drawing the blister red back of the neon LORD’S sign, drawing Levi over and over until his hands throb and his eyes ache.





	Like a Lonely House

**Author's Note:**

> Commission for the absolutely amazing [zedsdead1001](http://www.zedsdead1001.tumblr.com) on Tumblr. Thank you so much! Find me [@ellswritesthings](http://www.ellswritesthings.tumblr.com) if you want to commission or just scream.
> 
> Title from Pablo Neruda's Sonnet LXV. "so I wait for you like a lonely house/ till you will see me again and live in me./ Till then my windows ache."

The summer they lived above Lord’s 24 Hour Laundry and Dry Cleaning was one of the worst of Erwin’s life. Not only was that summer one of the hottest ones on record, but day in and day out, Lord’s pumped freshly scented steam into the whole building, making the temperature soar despite the best efforts of their feeble AC. The shower ran only some of the time and the water was rusty most of the time but despite all of its glaring flaws, he still paid for this shitty apartment because Levi seemed to like it.

“The neighborhood’s nice,” he’d said. It isn’t.

Erwin fills the sweltering days with whatever he can find, though it’s never enough. He gives English lessons to a strange university-hopeful named Hans, busses tables at Max and Leo’s American Diner, rides the train to Mike and Nana’s and babysits so they can go to kinky sex parties (although they’d never admit it to Erwin). He spends a lot of time on the roof because it’s the only bearable place in the building, draws lives he imagines for people on the street below, draws the blister red back of the neon LORD’S sign, draws Levi over and over until his hands throb and tears fill his eyes.

Most mornings Erwin wakes to the sound of the front door slamming shut. When Mike comes over he says that it’s almost like no one else lives there at all but Erwin knows better. He knows that the vegetables he manages to find on sale go missing, that the plastic flower patterned plate he pulls out of the cupboard had been sitting on the counter dirty when he’d gone to bed with the rising sun. Sometimes the sight of a dish that shouldn’t makes makes him spill over with grief so he’ll drag a folding chair from the table into the kitchen and draw the stains on the coffee pot just to have something to fill the spaces where Levi used to be.

Some days he's glad he doesn't have Levi after all. Levi was never one to be had, especially not by the likes of Erwin. Those days he lies in bed staring at the ceiling until the sun sets again and he tries to pinpoint the exact moment he started to push Levi away, the first time Erwin looked at Levi and felt heady need and debilitating fear. He’s not sure how his life got like this. Maybe Erwin fell for him the day they took the bus to the cloud covered beach, when Levi threatened to splash Erwin’s sketchbook if he didn’t come swim. Or maybe he fell in love during the commercial breaks between episodes of daytime television, watching Levi gesture with his disposable chopsticks at whatever new-fangled thing was a fucking ridiculous idea. Or maybe he fell in love with the secret joy in Levi’s eyes, knowing that if they kept their distance Erwin could protect that glow from whatever darkness lived within himself, that keeps him pinned to his bed dreaming of the closeness they used to have.

He waits but the chipping plaster of the ceiling holds no answers. He aches like the windows rattling against the summer’s coastal gales.

At 3am on an oppressively muggy night, Levi texts him nothing but an address. Erwin’s barely sent a  _ on my way _ before he jerks the car up to speed with an awkward step off the clutch, the skin of his legs sticking to the fake leather seats despite the boxers he barely remembered to throw on. The air drags its way out of his lungs and spreads around him like dirty laundry. He gasps around the humidity and his bone deep panic.

He finds Levi cradling a bottle of wine at a bus stop on the other side of town, three blocks from where he said he’d be. Levi ditches the mostly full bottle, climbs into the car, and all Erwin says is,

“Seatbelt.”

He wants to say,  _ you’re all I draw anymore. _

He wants to say,  _ nothing can stir me but you _ .

He wants to say,  _ please _ .

They drive home in silence.

Erwin lies awake in bed, the polyester of his cheap sheets sticking to his back. He thinks back to his last birthday, when he’d gone to the kitchen to find Levi cooking with bedhead that made him half a foot taller. The peaks of his hair had looked so easy to kiss. He wants to feel that way for Levi again, safe in the knowledge that it will always be an unknown but lately the unknown has had away of making itself known with the sharp tugging certainty of his car stalling.

When the sun finally starts to overtake the yellow glow of the street lamps below, he makes his way over to the top drawer of his dresser, the one he keeps his sketchbooks in, and grabs one at random. Erwin doesn’t think his love can stop Levi from the way he’s been acting lately, not when Levi doesn’t love him back. But maybe it’ll hurt less, when Erwin knows he’s said his piece.

Erwin pads out to the couch where Levi sleeps and tosses the book down on his naked chest.

Levi doesn’t startle and Erwin thinks that maybe he was never asleep at all. When he sits up, his dark blue bed sheet pools in the shadows of his lap, both the cloth and the man solid against the paisley cough they’d found in two pieces on the side of the road. He opens the sketchbook like it’s made of ash and Erwin wants Levi to etch charcoal flowers onto his chest and shoulders.

“Erwin,” Levi breathes. He gazes at the sketchbook in his lap-- glowing hangers advertising dry cleaning in the window of the laundromat downstairs, Levi on the roof set aglow by the light spilling out of the city like an open wound, chrome washing machines and pink checkered floors and Levi, Levi Levi.

“I’m sorry,” Erwin says. He’s not sure what for. 

“Erwin,” Levi repeats. Erwin gets a glimpse of the tears in Levi’s eyes before Levi is standing and pressing their lips together. It’s exquisite and merciless and damp with sweat the depth of night couldn’t wick away, so earnest that Erwin feels parts of himself that he’d always denied stir with new demands.

He pulls away gasping.

“Levi.” He looks at the sheet puddled on the floor, at the naked body in front of him, one he’s seen so many times, but always in the casual nudity of friends who would never touch. But never like this. He’s never seen Levi like this.

“Am I wrong?” Levi drags the back of his hand across his forehead but it does little to erase the heat of the summer, the heat of each other.

“No.”

“I thought you didn’t-”

“Levi, I don’t deserve-”

“Shut up,” Levi says. He’s kissing Erwin with the salt of their tears still on his lips, pushing him back towards Erwin’s bedroom with gentle hands that have thrown too many punches. They fumble, but when have they ever done anything else?

Levi chokes when the back of Erwin’s knees hit the side of his twin bed and they both go sprawling backwards, his shaking hand on Erwin’s waist keeping their hips pressed together. They still for a moment, their breath hitching with barely contained joy and pleasure and grief.

They’re draped across the short side of Erwin’s bed. His feet still touch the ground, head nearly hitting the opposite wall, but he can barely feel the almost alarming angle of his back when all he can think about is the solid weight of Levi pressed against him, taut and strong.

“Condom?” Levi breathes, his nails barely brushing the skin above Erwin’s waistband. Levi rolls onto the bed to let Erwin pat under the bed in a blind search for the box of condoms he used to keep there.

“Fuck,” Erwin groans, palm to his forehead. Levi hums low in his throat, grabs Erwin’s chin and tilts it up.

“There’s a lot we can do without a condom, Erwin,” he teases.

Even with the interruption, Erwin still melts in Levi’s hands, letting his back be pushed to the bed, his knees spread wide and cock hard and dripping against his stomach.

“So beautiful,” Levi murmurs, almost to himself. He lowers himself down and Erwin trembles at just the feeling of Levi’s heated breath against the flushed skin of his cock. Erwin feels Levi’s lips on the inside of his thigh, teeth and tongue sweeping, leaving goosebumps in their wake.

“I want you so bad,” he whispers against the taut muscles of Erwin’s thigh.

“Then take me.”

Levi does, tongue swirling around the head of Erwin’s cock with shivering intensity. Erwin struggles not to arch his back into the touch, into the wet heat of Levi’s mouth, into  _ please  _ and  _ yes _ and  _ more _ . Erwin can feel the cool skin of Levi’s hand grab the base of his cock and Levi sucks, cheeks hollowing.

“Oh god, Levi,” Erwin cries, winding his hands into Levi’s hair. “So good.”

Levi’s hand finds Erwin’s chest, teasing his nipple, and Erwin is torn between wanting the torment to never stop and wanting the closeness of winding their fingers together. When Levi laps at him with a slick sound, Erwin gasps and clutches at Levi’s wrist.

“God. Yes, please” he moans, eyelids fluttering, when Levi sinks down so Erwin’s entire length is enveloped and swallows hard.

Erwin isn’t sure if whatever has blossomed between them will shrivel in the light of day, isn’t sure if Levi will be here when he wakes, but he feels like a pile of driftwood and broken oars on the public beach and all he wants is for Levi to set him afire. 

Levi pulls back, panting, and places a sloppy kiss to the head of Erwin’s cock. They both groan and shudder in time with their hitching breath.

“Levi, please,” Erwin whines, shifting his hips to find friction on something, anything. Levi looks at him and smiles hungrily.

“Erwin,” he moans, hoisting himself up. He brings his reddened, swollen lips to Erwin’s, their teeth clicking in his fervor, and Levi’s tongue finds the tender spot Erwin had bitten into the skin.

“Erwin.” Again, as he presses their lips together.

“Erwin.” A chorus of his name sung by the only man whose voice he’s ever loved, by the only man who could unfurl his twisted syllables into something beautiful. He’d never cared for the sound of his name until he heard it spoken by Levi.

Erwin caresses his face, the unforgiving slope of his shoulders, the swell of the muscles in his chest, any skin he can reach as Levi’s lips make a path down his neck with frenzied nibbles soothed only by the wetness of his tongue. He cries out when Levi bites his collarbone, digs his nails in to the tender valley around Levi’s spine, trying to find any purchase in the slow slide of his body into ecstasy, to find anything solid as he dissolves into pleasure. Levi grabs both their cocks in his hand, wet with saliva and precom. The friction of their hips grinding into each other is tortuous and Erwin cries out in want.

“Jesus, fuck yes. Levi,” he keens, throwing a hand over his eyes to shut out the dizziness that’s overtaken him. Levi bats his hand away then kisses him hungrily, sucking Erwin’s bottom lip into his mouth and Erwin inhales desperately, trying to find any oxygen, trying to find any more friction with his stuttering thrusts.

Levi releases his bottom lip with a sinful  _ pop _ . Their eyes meet and for just a moment they still. Under all the dazed heat, Erwin can see the gentleness and affection and fear Erwin feels himself.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” Levi moans. He starts rolling his hips again and the twist of Levi’s wrists, the thumb teasing his slit, the sight of Levi with sweat slicked hair and flushed skin and swollen lips parted in passion that Erwin caused, sends him over the edge with a lurch. He sees Levi go still a moment later, barely hears him breathing  _ Erwin, oh god Erwin _ over the sound of his own panting.

When Levi rolls off him and pads to the bathroom, Erwin can’t help but wonder if this is a dream. He drifts somewhere in sleepy bliss and it doesn’t seem real, that after so long of watching from afar he can finally have what he wants.

The damp touch of a warm washcloth on his stomach startles him back to wakefulness.

“I’m sorry,” Levi says, wiping at Erwin’s skin almost shyly. Erwin knows it isn’t just about the washcloth but he’s not sure how to talk about forgiveness, especially when he’s not sure if he’s been angry with Levi or himself, so he says,

“I missed you.”

For a long moment Levi’s hands still, the moisture wicking heat from Erwin’s skin, before he starts cleaning small circles again. Satisfied, he casts the cooled cloth aside and climbs into bed, tucking himself against Erwin’s chest. Both their bodies are still damp with chilled sweat and Levi’s bony shoulders poke Erwin’s ribs, but Erwin’s never been more comfortable in his whole life. Erwin wraps an arm around Levi and thinks the pink glow of his skin after sex is so much better than the way he glows in the neon of the laundromat sign. Levi nuzzles closer with a small contented sigh.

“Where do you go?” Erwin asks. The street outside is still quiet, not humming with rush hour cars. Any louder and the hesitant question would have been swallowed by the sounds of morning commuters.

Levi shrugs. “It was getting hard to look at you.”

By mid morning they still haven’t moved, pleased with their entanglement. Erwin watches Levi, his slow breaths fluttering the strands of his hair, and thinks of all the new ways he can draw Levi now, of all the ways they’ll have to find each other again after so long needlessly apart, thinks of all the hours he spent lying in bed tormenting himself with questions that ultimately didn’t matter because he has Levi. At least for now, he has Levi and that’s more than enough.


End file.
